The Answer Is In The Question

The central proposition that drives all scientific inquiry is the research question, which should find significant grounding in solid theory. Theories simply represent the systematic grouping of ideas about a topic or phenomenon. Theories organize facts, explain behaviors, and generate new knowledge. As awesome as theories are, they are nothing without “the question.”

A huge problem I see in the world of church leadership is that everyone seems to be focused on finding solutions, “hacking” their way to growth, and quantifying how “right” their systems are. What makes the aforementioned such a big problem is that many are focusing, “hacking”, and quantifying in a counterproductive way because they started with the wrong question.

Instead of “How can our church break 100 in attendance?” what if the real question was “What size church are we supposed to be?”

Instead of starting with “How can we develop more discipleship programs?” what if we started with “What is discipleship?”

Instead of chasing the question “How can we reach more people?” what if we chased the question “Are the people we have being reached?”